Sunday, January 24, 2016

Man so last winter wasn't really cold. I think the coldest it got was like -5 and tat was like, the morning. And then it warmed up and it was ok again. I assumed it might be around that a bit more often this year because Daejeon is a bit further north.

But I was so wrong. This winter is cold man. Like, not even cold like "oh yea this is cold". It's cold like this weather would not be out of place back at home. Yesterday and today have been consistently like -15 without wind chill. Reaching into the -20s with wind.

TFW you don't even have proper winter clothes.

So you'd assume I'd just stay in my room where it's warm and play video games all day. Well, I would've done that except firstly, my room isn't even all that warm. Korean heating sucks. The floor heating idea they have is good in theory but the air never gets warm at all.

Plus the bathroom has zero heating and you need the window open to make sure mold doesn't grow everywhere due to the humidity so it's like, pretty RIP. Anyways, I ended up not staying in my room anyways and went to Seoul for a bit.

Seoul is the only place where you can find actual interesting food in this country.

One of my friends was going home for good so I decided to go up to Seoul to see her off. Seemed like a good time to go anyways because it's been a while since I went up there. Plus a few of my friends came back to Korea so it was a good time to just see people.

But man it was cold. Like, unexpectedly cold. The air was cold and the heating sucked. Even the Han river in Seoul started freezing which was pretty cool. They didn't have much snow but coming back to Daejeon today saw a lot more snow as we went south.

No picture of the outdoors, so here's one of my new rice cooker.

I really didn't expect this weather. I'm going to Gangwon this week which is like, in the mountains so it'll be colder too. Might need to actually prepare and buy some warmer clothes for that.

Sunday, January 17, 2016

This past week was alright. There was a lot of bonding over food going on. As far as the lab goes, we had four students in the lab including myself and then our professor. But from this month on, we acquired another student so we'll be five now.

This is kinda cool because I'm no longer the newest student and I'm no longer the only male. I was introduced to this guy before but this week he officially joined the lab. So on Monday we went out, all six of us, for our first lab dinner together.

Might be one of the most delicious meals I've had in Korea so far.

We went to a barbecue place and I just expected like, the usual. But we had something called 육겹살 which I didn't even know was a thing before. But this was approximately twice as fat as the regular pork belly meat we get, which was actually super, super, super delicious.

Aside from that, this week was kinda interesting in terms of lab work too. We borrowed a Project Tango tablet from another lab so play around with, and man, that is a cool little device. We're hoping to throw together something for that because it fits with what we wanna do in the lab.

I'm hoping to do some really cool things with this thing.

Outside of the lab, I think I'd consider myself fairly settled into my apartment now. I've been cooking for myself again, and like I said I've been trying to branch out on my cooking a bit and make some more dishes that aren't just boiling everything.

I still have a long way to go, but I think I'm making progress. I invited three of my friends over to my apartment yesterday for a small housewarming party so I cooked for them and we just kinda hung out and chilled.

I figured it was a good time to do it. I wanted to do a little "stress test" on my room to see how many people it could comfortably fit. Four was pretty comfy. I think five or six would probably be the max though.

It also happened that this weekend was pre-release for the latest Magic set too so today I went to play some Magic at the store. It was the first time going back since the renovation so it felt kinda fresh to play there. Opened some bad cards and did incredibly mediocre though.

Promo Captain's Claws followed by a regular one in a pack. The salt is real.

Overall pretty ok week. Nothing too exciting but just like, life moving on I guess. Crazy how time seems like it's moving so quickly though.

Sunday, January 10, 2016

So last week I got my one room apartment. This week I spent it moving the rest of my stuff into the room from the dorm and just organizing the room and buying new stuff for it. Not too exciting at face value, but pretty exciting for me.

This is like, my first real place that I can call my own. It was pretty fun to just kinda like, fill it up and figure out how I want to have it. I'm not done yet but it's getting there. The TV that came with the room was a bit too low so I made a stand for it.

Even fits my PS3 under it too.

The good thing about being in an Industrial Design program is that we have access to a bunch of machines and workshops, so I laser cut and built myself a TV stand. It's not perfect, but I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out.

Having the PS3 under there also saves me a lot of space. But unluckily both of my PS3 controllers are old now so they're glitching. However I just ordered a PS4 controller after finding out that they're compatible. So should be good.

My work/play side of the room.

I got a bunch of stuff for the kitchen too. Mostly in the form of utensils and dishes and stuff, but I also got a pot and a pan. Still need to buy a rice cooker but at least I can cook now. I'm tying to diversify my cooking.

It's weird cause I realized that aside from the last year and a half, I've pretty much been cooking for two years prior to that. Didn't realize it was that long. I've never been a good cook, but it's always been alright.

Omelettes are the easy thing to make.

Trying to spice it up a bit and cook more interesting foods. That'll start in full force once my kitchen is fully equipped. In the mean time, I'm just trying random stuff.

Speaking of force, I went and watched the new Star Wars movie yesterday too. I enjoyed it. Wasn't the best movie of 2015 in my eyes, but probably top three of the movies I've seen. Enjoyable experience overall, but you have to suspend disbelief a bit.

If only this wasn't so expensive.

But yea this week was alright. Just a lot of life stuff really. Let's see what next week is like.

Sunday, January 3, 2016

Well this has been a good start to the new year so far. Normally I don't really celebrate New Years much. Like yeah sure, new calendar, symbolic new start, etc etc. But honestly it's not a big deal for me. Just random festivities really.

But this year me and my friends made it an actual thing to celebrate it. We decided to go to Daegu for New Years because we haven't been back there in a bit and wanted to go back and hang out at all the places we used to hang out at for old times sake.

Pictured: A way to celebrate New Years.

That was actually kind of a nice trip. We ended up eating dinner and shopping around downtown Daegu before heading back to Keimyung to hit up two of the bars we used to always go to when we went to the language school.

A bunch of our friends and even a teacher showed up to partake in festivities. It was just pretty fun overall. Despite it being less than half a year since we finished with Keimyung, it's still a bit nostalgic to go back to Daegu. Forever a 대구 사람 I guess.

Probably had the most interesting New Year dinner too.

Following the short trip to Daegu, I got the codes for my new apartment in Daejeon. The goal was always to move out of the dorm after the first semester, and now that it ended I looked for, found, and contracted myself to a place.

Not going to lie, I was really looking forward to having my own place. The dorm at KAIST is much better than the dorm at Keimyung, but nothing beats your own place. Sure, it's more expensive and there's more to take care of, but dude, I have my own place now.

Comes with a TV and a bunch of other stuff too.

But despite spending all of yesterday and today moving and cleaning the room, I'm still not done yet. I'm not in a rush and I want to wash my clothes in the dorm and use the dryer while I can. Most of my stuff have been moved, but there's still more.

The room already looks much better than it does in that picture. But trust me, when I'm done fully moved in, it's gonna be super comfy and super nice. That's the goal for this week.